In a year when Americans feel like they have had little to celebrate over the holiday season, at least we received one long-belated gift: a brightly wrapped health care bill.

Virginians in particular can celebrate having two senators who, despite a seemingly endless barrage of threats and intimidation from the extreme right, had the courage to make the right choice for their constituents.

It shouldn’t have taken courage just common sense to support an end to rescission, to medical bankruptcies, to the national disgrace of poor Americans dying on the ER waiting room floor. But a small minority of well-heeled special interests have created the perverse illusion that giving Americans help they desperately need is somehow anti-American, and their misguided foot soldiers have been brandishing insults, cries of treason and even loaded guns at those who disagree.

I stand with my fellow Virginians in applauding Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner for standing firm against the town-hallers and tea-baggers and reminding them that the core of their support has always been real Virginians whose lives depend on health care policy, not opportunists who exploit it for political gain.